I Spent $1500 to Fix Ryobi's Mistake

Love the irony of dismantling a Ryobi with possibly the only non-ryobi drill/driver you likely have

I think the damage done by selling a 5K mower that will be useless in a couple of years is even worse than you stated. If someone who doesn't know about battery chemistry buys that thing and has to replace the pack after two years, they are going to be soured on battery powered equipment as a whole, not just Ryobi. Shame on them for selling something that is so obviously not fit for purpose.

After watching Louis Rossmann and other talk about repairability, Ryobi is actually a good guy here. They do price gauge, but you actually own the mower and everything is labeled and easy to replace.

I love how we’ve slowly seen you go from “batteries in a car?!?” To basically nearly an expert on battery chemistry and what’s the best battery type for each use case.

This is why right to repair is so important. You not only saved yourself money, you improved the product you purchased and were not stuck having to take whatever nonsense manufacturers want to sell to you. The product may be terrible and overpriced in its original configuration, but I do have a few points to give to Ryobi for having seemingly nearly ZERO anti-repair nonsense in there.

We argued with the guy at Home Depot. He swore up and down that Ryobi had lithium ion. When we asked for proof, he looked it up and they absolutely did not have them. We ended up getting a Cub Cadet. I saw the new Ryobi this week. I didn't see the price! Our Cub Cadet is still going fine after a couple of years.

I left an inverter connected by mistake and it discharged my 280Ah Lifepo4 cells to under 1V each. I was devastated because I just knew that my batteries were dead. Then I charged them, top balanced them and measured how much I had lost. I hought, yep, I lost most of the capacity, but they kept going. Until about 260Ah! Lifepo4 is SO underrated!

I appreciate the moments you leave in of just you being a human; we make mistakes, we do goofy things, and we aren't perfect by any means. (And thanks for having the bravery to add that blooper at the end, it was very funny and something I think would happen to me too 😂)

Okay, "horseless carriage" gladiator races need to be a thing now.

$5k is an insane price for that when you see it broken down, it seems like a well enough made thing (apart from the choice of batteries) but not $5k worth.

Thank you so much for doing this. I plan to update my Ryobi soon and glad to have some REAL info on how to do it.

Thanks for this update. I've been waiting for it for like 10 years. 👍

You should have hung a chainlink fence over your yard, so the Ryobi cordless didn't need batteries, like a bumper car. Red Green has a good instruction video.

Easy to disassemble? All the fasteners are the same? Good engineers! You don't have to make everything difficult! I knew an old mechanic who worked mostly on Fords & Lincolns, starting in the early 1970s. Aside from the frustrating madness of reverse bolts (not righty-tighty, lefty-loosey), Fords back then had needlessly bewildering types of bolts holding things together. If you needed to, say, remove an alternator from a '70s Ford, you could guarantee that the three bolts attaching it to the motor used three different sized bolts (1/2", 5/8", 11/16", etc.). Compare to working on something like a Hyundai where nearly everything is held together by 10mm bolts; easy!

Never thought you'd actually do this after you mentioned it. Amazing work😊

I replaced the SLA batteries in my mower with the Big Battery 48V FALCON ELITE and couldn't be happier with it. Dropped right in without any modifications to the mower needed other than drilling a couple small holes for screwing the battery to the sliding tray. I'm using the built in charge port, but I am using a LiFePo4 specific charger, as it is not recommended to use the Ryobi charger with LiFEPo4 batteries since they don't need a trickle charge. The original battery meter still works well enough, and the battery has an LCD display on it showing the current voltage, so I don't ever need to guess how much charge I have left. Best news is that I can mow my 1.1 acre lawn in two directions and only use about 15% of the battery. The lower weight and ability to use more of the battery's capacity make these batteries a must-do upgrade. Thanks for the thorough video of your experience!

Robert, you never fail to put a smile on my face. Your imagination, engineering, videography, editing, and humor are the tops!

Just started watching the channel. Every video so far reminds me of the Malcom in the Middle episode where Hal starts by trying to replace a lightbulb and ends up rebuilding the whole car engine. Great videos!

learning about LFP batteries in this video was super enlightening! Awesome content

Great technical transition to the ad, thoroughly enjoyed it.